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I find when I thin my citadel paints with water, usually a little less than 1:1 (less water because I don't like it runny and streaky. Still can't figure out how people get such smooth coats with watered down paint. I do 3 or so coats and it's still streaky and runny looking.) the colors seperate on the palette within a minute or so. Never seen this happen in tutorial videos, but every paint I use this happens to.
Would using airbrush thinner instead help keep my paints a good consistency instead of separating into paint and water on the palatte.
Also I use a wet palette.

I have used airbrush thinner to thin paints for hairy brushing before, it's not terrible but the airbrush thinner is usually a stronger solvent than is good for hairy brushing which can make it tricky to use.

Personally if I'm trying to get super smooth coats I thin with mixes of water, flow improver, lahmian medium and glaze medium. The flow improver breaks the surface tension and lets the paint spread easier, the glaze medium makes the paint dry a bit slower which further helps levelling and also acts like a bit of a binder so if going super thin it stops the paint separating out.

I don't use a wet palette though, just my dry palette. I could imagine flow improver MAYBE causing problems on a wet palette.

It can be to do with the colours themselves, depending on the pigment and materials used it could need less than a 1:1 Ratio to get nice smooth coats, however if you're using a wet palette, remember that you already have water added so you would want to add less water than you normally would.

Reds are quite notorious for being thinner than other colours as an example.

Try a lower ratio starting from just dipping your brush in the water and work up from there to find what works best for you.

I always put thinner or Lahman medium into my pots prior to shaking. My aim is to get the whole pot to a painting consistency so I can paint straight from the pot without using water at all.